Think about accessibility from the start

But the concept of accessibility doesn’t just apply to people with disabilities - all users will have different needs at different times and in different circumstances. Someone’s ability to use a service could be affected by their:

location - they could be in a noisy cafe, sunny park or area with slow wifi

health - they may be tired, recovering from a stroke or have a broken arm

equipment - they could be on a mobile phone or using an older browser

Accessibility is about making sure your service can be used by as many people as possible. Thinking about this from the beginning will help you:

make sure that nobody is excluded

find out earlier if any parts of your service aren’t accessible - problems usually cost less to fix if you find them early

Accessibility is different from assisted digital support, which means helping users with low digital skills or limited access to the web.

Researching with users with disabilities

When doing research, you have to include users who have disabilities or use assistive technologies.

What to do in alpha

During alpha, you should be thinking about whether what you’re designing meets the WCAG 2.0 design principles - this will help you meet the needs of all your users.

You should also start thinking about your accessibility audit. Even though you won’t need this until beta, it can take time to arrange. You may have someone in your department with the necessary skills and auditing experience to do this. If not, you will need to appoint an external accessibility specialist.

You can ask your auditor to spend a couple of days during alpha reviewing your designs and prototypes for potential accessibility problems.

What to do in beta

During beta, you need to start testing for accessibility. Running a combination of manual and automated tests each time you develop a new feature means you can sort out issues that could be costly to fix at a later stage.

Check what testing tools and software your team has access to in case you need to pay for some.

Getting an accessibility audit

You must get an accessibility audit towards the end of beta, which will provide evidence at assessment that your service works with assistive technologies and meets WCAG 2.0 level AA. This can take time to arrange, so start planning for it during alpha.

Appointing an auditor

If you don’t have anyone in your department with experience of doing accessibility audits, you can use the Digital Marketplace to find an external supplier. Audits by external suppliers usually cost between £5,000 and £7,000.

What to do in live

It’s important to carry on testing and researching your service once it’s live.

Check that any new features you add meet government accessibility requirements, and continue doing research with users with disabilities.

If you make substantial changes to your service, you can get another audit to check you still meet government accessibility requirements.

Make non-digital parts of your service accessible

You should also make sure the non-digital parts of your service are accessible.
For example, you should make sure that users who are deaf or have a speech impairment are offered a way to contact you (by text, email or in person with a British Sign Language translator or lip reader).

If you have to send out letters as part of your service, make sure you can also provide these in alternative formats that are accessible (for example large print, braille or audio CD).